GIG SCENE: Wally concert tickets on sale

YES, tickets are now on sale for next year's show by reformed rock legends Wally or, rather, they will be on sale from next Monday, writes Graham Chalmers.

The highly-anticipated concert, to be held in the Royal Hall on Saturday, April 17, 2010 will see this Harrogate prog rock-ish band play brand new material from their forthcoming album - their first together in 35 years - plus classic tracks from the 1970s!

It's expected to be a speedy sell-out, bearing in mind the amount of international interest in the band now, never mind Harrogate, so fans are advised to book their tickets, costing 17.50 each, as soon as they can.

The new album, featuring all-new tracks, is at the mastering stage and it's hoped it will be on sale early December.

Meanwhile, the terrific live DVD of their triumphant reunion show from earlier this year is now on sale at the Blues Bar, as well as online.

For tickets for next year's show, telephone the HIC/Royal Hall box office or visit www.wallymusic.co.uk

A HARROGATE-based charity is putting on live Cajun-inspired music night to raise funds for a worthy cause.

Held at Lure Bar in Harrogate this Thursday, November 26, the band Bayou Gumbo will be the stars of the show organised by the Harrogate and District Sygnets.

An Otley-based outfit, it's worth noting that this eclectic band of instrumentalists don't just play traditional Louisiana Cajun but also blues and rock n' roll.

They've recently released a new CD called Rocking Hot Gig.

The Sygnets are a group of Harrogate businesswomen who get together to share advice and experiences while raising money for worthwhile causes.

The beneficiaries of the Lure Bar show will be Otley-based charity Chamelon which helps start up and maintain schools in poverty-stricken areas of South Africa.

Julie Burton, chairman of the Sygnets, said: "The event has been inspired by Doreen Hodgson, the founder of the Chameleon Charity who gave the Sygnets a presentation on her work. Bayou Gumbo kindly offered to play and the Lure Bar has been very generous, too, giving us the venue free of charge."

Chris Mailer, manager of Lure Bar said: "We were only too happy to help out. I took over the bar earlier in the year and want to offer a variety of entertainment here"

Tickets for next Thursday's show are priced 5, available from Lure Bar or by emailing sygnets@hotmail.co.uk

THE next live act at The Stonehouse in Knaresborough, formerly Fusion nightclub, is scheduled to be a tribute act to a legendary northern comic.

Tomorrow, Saturday's show stars a Tribute to Chubby Brown, please check with venue about prices, timings etc.

The following week there's a big event for metal and hard rock fans at The Stonehouse when internationally-acclaimed new metal band Tribe play supported by Drowned in Flames on Saturday, November 28.

Tribe have been hailed by Metal Hammer and Iron Maiden's Bruce Dickinson and feature lead singer Paul Kettley (well know locally from MFOR), Gaz McKenzie (bass), Nick Dunne (guitar, keyboards) and Adam Goldsmith (drums).

Tribe will be promoting their debut album Pray for Calm. . .Need the Chaos.

You can check out Tribe and their music by visiting www.tribe.uk.net or the bands official myspace www.myspace.com/tribeband

Advance tickets for the Tribe show, priced 6, are available from Music House, Cheltenham Parade, Harrogate,or Pear, High Street Knaresborough.

Any local bands interested in playing The Stonehouse in future, please contact Liam 07979154830 or liamgray80@hotmail.co.uk

IT was good to hear that Quartet, a new jazz band specialising in what they call "smooth lounge,"did so well in their debut gig at The Mitre in Knaresborough, they've been asked to return this weekend to a venue which shortly celebrates its first birthday of live music since its through makeover.

And they've come up with a new twist on Radiohead's idea of 'free music' they pioneered with the release of their In Rainbows album a couple of years ago online.

The four-piece of experienced musicians who blend soul, blues and jazz into a sophisticated concoction, packed the place out last time during the venue's weekly Sunday night acoustic session. And they've not been quiet since then.Vocalist/electric violinist Wendy Ross, guitarist/keyboard player Peter McLoughlin, bassist Jonathan Barrett and drummer John Shepard have been in the studio, recording tracks for a mini-album which will be available when they return to The Mitre on Sunday, November 22 from 8pm.

The twist is that the band are not charging for the CD. Instead, they're suggesting fans make a contribution based on how they feel about the music on the night!

THE AMP awards, a hugely successful battle of the bands competition for schools in Harrogate and district (and Wetherby), is back and promises to be even better than the debut event which climaxed at Harrogate International Centre in January with the help of BASH Studios.

The competition is currently at the heats stage, as the search begins to follow previous winners Book of Job and runners-up Kid October, with the first ones taking place earlier this week including King James's School in Knaresborough where the winners were Caramel Fortune, a year 13 band.

ONE of the finest blues singers of her generation plays for Ripley Blues this weekend.

Headliner Kyla Brox, whose latest album received airplay on Paul Jones's radio show this week, plays in the intimate, upstairs Blues Room at Ripley Town Hall tomorrow, Saturday, backed on stage by Danny Blomeley on guitar and Tony Marshall on sax.

For tickets costing 8/10, tel 01423 860340 , visit www.ripleyblues.com or e-mail andy@ripleyblues.com

Doors open at 7.30pm for an 8.30pm.

RipleyBlues' line-up at Ripley Town Hall also includes one of the leading Roxy Music tribute bands, Roxy Magic on Saturday, December 5. Then, on Saturday, December 19, there's the big one - the annual Christmas show from r'nb' kings Nine Below Zero.

More info from.ripleyblues.comHOLBY City actor Mark Moraghan will be singing the swing jazz songs of broadcaster Nicky Campbell in a series of intimate warm-up shows in the area next week.

And in case you're wondering just how good he is, read this quote from the Daily Telegraph: "Moraghan sings with the gusto of Sinatra, a Harry Conwick Jr swing and a nod to Tony Bennet's heartstring tugs."

Moraghan, who is perhaps best known for his television work, as an actor on shows such as Holby City, Harry Enfield and Chums, and Brookside, will appear with a trio of musicians in the following shows singing songs from the Moonlight's Back in Style album:

Thurs, Nov 26: West Park Hotel, Harrogate - 8pm, tickets 10.

Plus Tues, Nov 24: Coopers, Guiseley.

Wed, Nov 25: Wakefield Jazz, Wakefield.

POPULAR 1960s covers band The Diamonds are playing a special gig at The Manhattan Club in Harrogate on Saturday, November 28. Tickets costing 5 are available from the club or on the door.

HARROGATE'S only seven nights a week music venue, The Blues Bar, sees the return of all-round, creative genious Ashley Reaks for another Sunday lunchtime music session.

Other gigs this week include: Fri, Nov 20: The Steve Fulsham Band.Sun evening: Kris Dollimore.Thurs: Dan Burnett Blues Band.

LOCAL CD REVIEW

Tunji: MK Ultra (EP)

BARNSTORMING but brilliant, Tunji take the best elements of 70s prog rock on this EP and plunge them into a dystopian future - or is that the present?

It's easy to forget amid those old accusations of 'self-indulgence' that as well as things like time signature-hopping, elaborately-structured, show-off musicianship, the likes of Yes, ELP and even Genesis (check out their 1973 live album) also displayed National Grid levels of pure energy.

Ditto this impressive, no-holds barred, four-piece Harrogate-Leeds outfit who are due to play Harrogate's Dragongate Festival tomorrow (Saturday) around 4pm.

What is different and new about mssrs Tiff Miller (guitar/vocals), Chris Maysom (bass/vocals), Dave Dowson (keyboards) and Steve Campbell (drums), not to forget Dave Middleton on vocals, what they have in common with the new breed of prog rockers such as Mars Volta, is that their musical influences don't include such important old fogey 70s staples as r'nb, folk or jazz.

Tunji are children of the Rave and 'crusty' generation and, as such, their two dominant musical building blocks are ambient-dance and pure rock.

And, boy, does this EP rock. Not at the expense of hooks and melody, especially on the opening tracks Fires and De-Ja Vu, which have the punchy but slick vocal style of the Foo Fighters allied to a slight 1980s sheen.

They simply never get dull, not on the toughest, most snarling rock track Good Company. Not even on the 9min 30sec of the closing track, the epic instrumental Cos We Can (MK Ultra).

Awash in heavily-phased vocal narration about the treatment of prisoners, emergency sirens wailing in the psychedelic wind, it's hard to tell exactly what it's all about, though thoughts of Blade Runner or the CIA's secret drug-based, mind control programme from the 1950s (also called MK Ultra) rise and fall.

Perhaps, they're genuine US Government instructions for detainees at Guantanamo Bay? Perhaps Tunji are saying we're all trapped in a new Cold War?

Is that why their music sounds so urgent?

Graham Chalmers

www.myspace.com/tunjibuzzing

LIVE REVIEWS

Leeds Festival, Bramham Park, 2009, by Graham Chalmers

WHAT on earth are the Arctic Monkeys doing?

Unveiling tracks from their new album as if they were the Rolling Stones in the mid-1970s, thinking they could persuade fans the future was going to be just as good as the past?

Having dispensed early with I Bet She Looks Good on The Dancefloor, the surprisingly long-haired Monkeys try to repaint their short back catalogue in a darker shade than the 'cheeky northern chappy' guise they made their name with three, short years ago.

It's not that the Humbug tracks are bad, just a bit boring for the dark of the closing moments of the first night of Leeds Festival.

Whether their subtle strengths would work better in a more intimate environment isn't the question; right here, right now they're boring their audience.

When, at last, the still young Sheffield band deign to return briefly to crowd-pleasing with the opening chords of Fluorescent Adolescent, they bravely, or foolishly, slow the pace halfway through in a fit of artistic adventure.

It's as if boyish, butter wouldn't melt in his mouth, carefully coiffeured lead singer Alex Turner no longer believes in the things which made him famous.

Even more alarmingly for the Arctic Monkeys' future, he seems to lack faith or patience in his own fans' capacity to warm to his new persona, to grow with the band.

Radiohead should be about to bring the day to a close on a downer but, in their post-In Rainbows frame of mind, their iciness of the past has melted.

Neither attempting to re-educate their fans like the Arctic Monkeys, nor suck up to them like The Prodigy, instead they play the coolest tracks from all their albums from OK Computer onwards plus a brand, new track, These Are My Twisted Words, and, thankfully, no Creep as we heard they'd dug up the night before at Reading.

It's not that the band have become fun, exactly, even if they do play a few tracks off fans' perennial favourite The Bends.

What's changed over the past decade is that Radiohead no longer bring a chilly alienation to everything they touch.

In their hearts they are more mellow; Thom Yorke has become a warmer individual, and that warmth seeps through not only in the mysterious beauty of tracks from In Rainbows but into every other song they play, too.

Combined with stage props as clean and clever and arty but unthreatening as this new version of Radiohead themselves, and the end result is stunning - perhaps the best headlining show at Leeds Festival ever.

No one goes off home to the tent or the car or the bus jumping and singing but everyone leaves impressed.

There's no sense of Radiohead having to work to achieve this effect, the band have simply grown into a great musical ensemble.

For more, see www.modernmusicreview.com

It's easy to believe in Kings of Leon or it was until lead singer Caleb Followill's not first, not second, not even third or fourth speech about how "great the fans in Leeds are" but the fifth stab at such embarrassingly, possibly semi-drunken fawning to the crowd like a Las Vegas singer whose just had his gambling debts wiped off by the house.

Kings of Leon used to be a half-hour band with a one-trick approach.

If you saw them on their UK tours for their first and second albums, early delight at their subtle skills at squeezing the maximum effect from tiny changes in the playing of simple, old-fashioned guitar pop - with a slight Deep South r'nb rock slant - always turned to tedium as they ran out of memorable material to work their miniature magic on.

Now, after the growing success of albums three and four, they have become an hour band with a two or, sometimes, three-trick approach.

What's done this for them, what's made last year's Only By Night the bestselling phenomenon it has become from HMV to ASDA, is the toughening of the sound and the injection of late night atmosphere a la Where The Streets Have No Name era U2 - those epic build-ups and swelling synth washes adding poignancy to their very manly approach in all other matters.

At their best, bathed in reds from the stage lights under a black sky, Kings of Leon transcend their redneck roots and less than intellectual lyrics by dint of their brooding, sweating sound and gut level emotions.

Their songs conjur up images of a man lying awake at night trying to get to grips with the impact and morality of some tangled indiscretion he's committed earlier with some girl he shouldn't have with.

At their worst, as their sound has gotten larger and darker, they threaten to lose the last of the charm from the early tracks on Youth and Young Manhood.

Their show, rapturously received at first, a little less so by the end, poses the question whether Kings of Leon have anywhere left to go musically.

Super Pop starring Pagan Wanderer Lu.

Pagan Wanderer Lu was playing at Milo as part of a new night called Super Pop which I'd never come across before.

Though it was hot in this small Leeds venue, it was also musically bold, visually stunning and a lot of fun - although it was certainly sweltering upstairs.

I've never been at a gig where the audience stood swaying most of the time in 3D glasses, the idea of organisers www.modernmusicreview.com and VJ Quadrod.

As this inventive, DIY one-man band played tracks from his new album, Fight My Battles For Me the VJ projected amazing, moving images which took on a whole new life of their own if you put on the spectacles given out on arrival.

Pagan Wanderer Lu's songs had no fixed point, moving from style to style rapidly, one second sounding like an early 60s girl group, the next a little bit of folktronica before settling for New Order.

Witty, clever and provocative, his songs were full of synths and bleeps from one of those old mini Casio MT-40 keyboards mixed with traditional electric guitar and juicy sampled beats.

Playing two short sets, the first was more experimental, the second showed Pagan Wanderer Lu was capable of writing more conventional songs.

Highlights included one called The Bridge of Sighs and a great guitar track called The Memorial Hall which closed the evening.

As members of the crowd swayed from side to side, still wearing those red and blue spectacles, Pagan Wanderer Lu took the song beyond its rock roots into Rave, the beats booming out for some time in a terrific mash-up with soundman Dave Procter.

I haven't seen an 'indie' act who could change from Badly Drawn Boy to MGMT so quickly and still have a decent tune.

He's definitely one to look out for and the organisers modernmusicreview.com deserve congratulations for putting on such an unusual and brilliant show.

Next time some electric fans though, please.

David Procter

www.myspace.com/paganwandererlu

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